Stories of the Best & Worst of Humanity Through the Eyes of Those Trying to Save It

Just Go For all those women, and men, who wish to travel alone, learn these things and they will set you free. 1. Learn to pee anywhere, anytime; standing, squatting, sitting, hovering; in- or out-of-doors; with or without paper; with or without someone or something watching. 2. Learn to walk, far; Appreciate the value of [...][Continue Reading...]

Every shooting star you’ve ever seen, scudding across the sky at the same time. Every distant summer thunderhead, pulsing with silent, harmless light, rolling over your head in succession. The flicker of every candle flame you’ve ever watched to the end of the wick. Every campfire you’ve stared into embers. The slow, unhurried dawn of [...][Continue Reading...]

I am the loneliest lighthouse in the world. I live in the Baltic Sea, between Finland and Estonia. I have no land to call my own, just this tiny, ship-sinking rock I call my home. You can’t see the cliff edge on which I’m perched, but it’s just there, beneath the churning, inhospitable sea. The [...][Continue Reading...]

The first time I fell in love with flowers, I stood on a stage, at the young age of five. A glittering butterfly costume with so many sequins it made me dizzy. Tiny, tiny pink ballet slippers. Wooden, resin-dusted stage in front of the largest audience my young eyes had ever seen. Bright lights that [...][Continue Reading...]

I can tell when a train is approaching. The track, the third rail that electrifies the cars, starts to click and move in its mounting. It makes that heavy, metal-on-metal clink that weight bars in the fly-machine at the gym make between reps. Then comes the wind out of the tunnel, ruffling my dress and [...][Continue Reading...]

Marble or granite. Maybe concrete. I’m lying on something very hard and very flat. Perfectly smooth, like slate. It seems that it should be cold, but I am not cold. In fact, despite the weight of my body pressing my shoulder blades and my hips and my heels into this apparent bedrock beneath me, I’m [...][Continue Reading...]

I’ve almost always worked with all men. I’ve come to prefer it. But there’s nothing glamorous about it. men are not glamorous. Especially when I worked for the fire department, where everyday Joe’s got dressed up in blue shirts and steel toed boots and rode around in shy red trucks. Women approached me, constantly, eyes [...][Continue Reading...]

Alfred Hitchcock also ran. I’d watched the super moon come up. It’s the time in the moon’s orbit when it is closest to the earth on its elliptical cycle. There’s an optical illusion that makes the moon appear larger on that night than most others. And it makes people crazy. That, or people use it [...][Continue Reading...]

It’s working. The things we’re doing are working. The rust belt has flowers blooming in repurposed cast iron crates. Foundries and factories have flower boxes in the windows and young professionals in the lofts. Old mansions have new paint in vibrant colors with bric-a-brac trim that’s hand detailed. Old storefronts have new names and new [...][Continue Reading...]

I love a place where everything feels good. The air smells good in my nose. The wine tastes good in my mouth and feels soft on my tongue. The bar top has some texture to play on my hand and some sculptured light to play on my eyes. The walls of brick and the ceiling [...][Continue Reading...]